Abstract

Though the Cameroon government has put in place policies to ensure quality and holistic education of students, very little or no efforts have been put in place to monitor how these policies are being implemented in schools and if the implementation or none implementation of these policies have any toll on the performance of students in school. It is against this backdrop that this study assesses the effect of principals’ implementation of government policies on the academic performance of students in Fako Division, South West Region of Cameroon.

The study had as primordial objective to examine the extent to which the implementation of government policies in secondary schools has affected the academic performance of students.  Using interview guide and the questionnaire as the instrument for collecting data, the simple random sampling technique was used to collect data. SPSS (statistical Package for Social Sciences) version 21.0 was used for quantitative analysis meanwhile thematic analysis was use for qualitative data (extensive open ended questions).

The study found out that most schools in Fako don not respect government policy on class size and class segmentation. This was largely attributed to the political unrest crisis going on in the area that has caused many students to come to Fako. However, the study also revealed that, most Classes are more than 60 because the principals desire to get private gain from the school.

The study also pointed that, some teachers failed to implement government policy on the prescribed text books due to the fact that, most of the prescribed textbooks were outdated and thus difficult for most students to understand. Correlations analysis revealed that, there was a strong association between the implementation of government policy on class size and corporal punishment on the academic performance of students.

The study recommends as follows: manual be produced and distributed to teachers and school administrators prescribing alternatives to corporal punishment, the government, along with other key stakeholder should call for an immediate cease-fire so schools can resume in most rural areas in the Region, as to decongest  schools in Fako Division. Also, fundamental textbooks be given free to students.

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